RESPONDING TO POETRY IN THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST COLLEGE CLASSROOM: A PEDAGOGICAL RESPONSE BASED ON THE INTEGRATION OF FAITH IN THE LEARNING PROCESS

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1 61 Institute for Christian Teaching Education Department of Seventh-Day Adventists RESPONDING TO POETRY IN THE SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST COLLEGE CLASSROOM: A PEDAGOGICAL RESPONSE BASED ON THE INTEGRATION OF FAITH IN THE LEARNING PROCESS by Carlton Drepaul Assistant Professor Faculty of Humanities Caribbean Union College Port of Spain, Trinidad Prepared for the 18 th International Faith and Learning Seminar held at West Indies College Mandeville, Jamaica - June 16-28, Institute for Christian Teaching Old Columbia Pike Silver Spring, MD USA

2 62 INTRODUCTION Literary criticism emerged during the eighteenth century as a critical art of comparing the literary greats. During the nineteenth century, literary studies appeared in the curriculum of leading universities, and criticism became an issue of great concern. At this time, two basic schools of thought existed. One aggrandized the text and discounted the reader, while the other enabled the reader and dominated the text. In other words, one saw the literary text as a miraculous, semi-autonomous aesthetic artifact while the other saw the text as a valuable cultural production grounded in anthropological, economic, social, and political history. Whatever these schools of thought propagated, the response of the reader was always required. As time elapsed, reader-response criticism became a crucial tool of literary critical theory inasmuch as literary response experienced an epochal transformation that was distinguished by various schools of thought from Marxist to Feminist criticism. However, many have dealt with the literary experience since the time of Aristotle's discussion of catharsis literature clarifies, purifies, and purges but this literary experience, which is response to literature, has always remained a performance and a transaction between the reader and the literary work. The reader of the literary work, and for this essay the poem, has a task to accomplish before critical response is made. The author and speaker, who are almost always different in a literary work, must be separated. For instance, the "lover" in Shakespeare's love sonnet, "116," must not be confused with Shakespeare in real life. The reader's primary concern is with the speaker within the poem that voice or disguise through which communication is done. So then, the "real reader" is recreated by what the voice communicates through language. Language, therefore, makes the reader assume, for the sake of experience, and by experience, a set of attitudes and qualities, which the language of the poem dictates as the poem is read. But in as much as the language dictates communication within the created "real reader," the author and his/her place in history also helps to make response substantial. Louise Rosenblatt claims that the author of a literary text communicates with readers through experiences that are common and which make the text a social product (27-28), by sharing his [her] vision with readers

3 63 (34), setting "forth scathing revelation of the life about them," and creating a "culminating experience that crystallizes a long subconscious development"( ). Within the process of response in literary criticism, there are various emphases, but all conclude that the reader brings to the poem expectations and schema to produce meaning and behavior. In the Christian college classroom, and specifically the Seventh-day Adventist college classroom, the integration of Christian faith and learning should be reflected in the various responses students make. Therefore, in order to guide students through the exercise of literary response, the SDA philosophy of integrating faith, which means faith in Christ, and learning needs to establish a pedagogical approach to provide for a specific response in the SDA college classroom. This attitudinal remodeling of literary response involves emphasizing the meaning of a poem, what the author means, and what the poem means to the reader. This literary response includes one of the pertinent issues that have eluded theorists for decades: the issue of the faith or beliefs that the reader brings to the poem. It is important that response to poetry in the SDA college classroom exhibit the SDA worldview and not the general worldviews of literary response. MAJOR WORLD VIEWS All the major worldviews of the various schools approach literary response differently. The generalists see literary response, not as an investigation of literary history or studying established blue prints of criticism, but as a result of what the text "speaks for yourself" (Jane Tompkins 86). New criticism requires the poem to be seen as a literary response as an exploration of the structure of the text. Literary response, then, is an organic development that shows how each word contributes to a unique context and derives its meaning by its particular usage within the poem (Vincent Leitch, 26). The phenomenologists claim that the poem is said to be awaiting its fate, that is, to be delivered by the reader. Literary response in the phenomenological approach requires the reader to bring the poem to life as poem and reader converge. This kind of response engages the imagination of the reader in a pleasurable exercise of creative reading activities.

4 64 All literary worldviews require response from an internalized process. Stanley Fish, literary critic, posits that literary response to a poem is not acquired like extracting a nut from a shell, but an experience in the course of reading (Tompkins xii - xvii). This theory fits the mould of the SDA literary worldview. SDA WORLD VIEW The SDA view sees literature as setting forth people's impressions of their world, as well as their aspirations, deeds, thoughts and accomplishment whether good or bad. This literature can be factual or non-factual, and may be drawn from secular or religious literary works. It supports the theory that God is the source of all knowledge and wisdom. It further claims that God is the creator and sustainer of the earth and the entire universe. Literary response is required to investigate significant, artistic, lasting insights into essential human experience. It must include an appreciation and emulation of the beauty of language and the art of literary structure. It must show that the reader confronts reality which can provide a basis for developing discriminatory powers that will draw the reader to Christ and strengthen understanding and faith (Guide to the Teaching..., 3-5). The conclusion, therefore, is that whenever response is made to a poem, the responder is required to integrate faith in the learning process. This integration concept stresses two key terms that are pertinent in Christian education faith and learning. DEFINITION OF FAITH Webster's Twentieth Century Dictionary of the English Language offers a proliferation of synonyms for the word faith: belief, trust, confidence, credence, fidelity, conviction, creed, tenets, doctrine, opinion; yet, none of these aptly covers nor concretizes in the mind the concept of faith. Humberto M. Rasi understands faith to be "both a gift of God and human response to the trustworthiness of God." He continues to suggest that it is "an ability that God has granted to every human being," which will develop only when "we respond to God's self-disclosure and trustworthiness as we pass through the various stages of life" (1). Ellen G. White sees faith as a channel through which

5 65 the grace of God comes to the soul; it is that which is exercised "to believe that we received the blessing even before we realize it" (Early Writing, 72). Once the views on faith are rationalized, whether cognitively or otherwise, faith requires that the praxis of the person be consistent with the expressed belief. So faith cannot be defined as passive; rather, it is the activity expressed, rooted and grounded in the belief of one's reality. DEFINITION OF LEARNING Learning is not an activity; it is a process. Developmental psychology postulates that a child needs two essentials the ability to grow and the ability to learn. When learning takes place, the individual exhibits an acquired response or, as some experts would say, an acquired mode of behavior. Logically, it can be argued that all behaviors are acquired "the native" or inborn behavior which seems to be ready-made at birth can be said to be acquired through biological emergence and functions prior to birth. Whatever stance the debate takes, one thing is quite sure, some behaviors are "built in," and after birth, others are constantly "built into." Educational psychology defines learning as changes taking place in the mediating processes of an individual's life, and mediating processes develop and change in the course of life (George J. Mouly, 25). Learning, for Mouly, is a progressive process that proceeds by discarding mediating process for more efficient ones at every stage of life. This learning process views response as a phenomenon that is actualized in the light of interpretation that depends on "the potentialities, the social and physical setting," "motivational status," and past experiences of the responder (Mouly, 24, 25). This theory, therefore, claims that response is controlled by the changes that affect learning. The Bible also purports that learning is a continuous acquisition of behavioral responses. Solomon says that the wise would listen in order to add to their learning, and this is possible by attaining wisdom and discipline, understanding words of insight, acquiring a discipline and prudent life, doing what is right and just and fair, giving prudence to the simple, and knowledge and discretion to the young (Proverbs 1:2-6, NIV). All the various aspects of learning provide a challenge that shows the sacredness of learning.

6 66 THE MANDATE FOR INTEGRATION The Bible presents a challenge that gives a clear-cut perspective for the SDA college teacher. Faith must be creatively integrated in the learning process to create a form of response that provides a holistic outlook on life an outlook that is replete with beliefs, attitudes, and values, and shows a confession that faith and values inevitably influence literary response. But characteristic of the integration of faith in the learning process is a literary response based on honesty, liberty, hope, and redemption: recapturing the meaning and worth of human existence and reinvesting life with the sanctity of God. This is only possible if the SDA college teacher is aware of his/her God-given mandate: "Whatever the line of investigation we pursue, with a sincere purpose to arrive at truth, we are brought in touch with the unseen, mighty Intelligence [God] that is working in and through all" (White, Education, 14). Every SDA college literature teacher needs to be aware of the process that the student must go through before literary response is made. The literary response process can differ from student to student because each student has very different sets of expectations, experiences, and bases of judgment. However, it must not be forgotten that the poem becomes an event in the reader's life, and the reader enters into an actual process of literary excursion. Since the reader/student undergoes a process, the SDA literature teacher must adhere to the counsel that "guided study" is a part of the process. Guided study, in this context, means the "selection of materials and methods of teaching" that will help students to develop into mature children of God, and become "committed to the search for wisdom and truth, and concerned with the physical and spiritual well-being of their fellow men" (Guide to the Teaching, 9). This process inevitably involves the conscious or unconscious reinforcement of ethical attitudes, and if the process is not guided, then there will be no enrichment or clarification of individual experiences. The teacher must guide in a "setting of love, compassion, beauty and simplicity" (Guide to the Teaching, 11), showing at all times the relevance of literature to the Christian life.

7 67 RECOMMENDED PEDAGOGICAL PHILOSOPHY AND METHODOLOGY God has mandated the SDA Christian teacher to carefully understand the relevance of literature. Rasi gives the clear mandate of God on literary response when he declares that God's message must be mediated to a world that is in need; creation be restored "to its pristine state;" and honoring God "must ever remain the ultimate goal of all activities in which Christians engage" ("Adventist...", 7). An extension of God's mandate as reiterated by Arthur Holmes states that part of the created order if sacred and everyone must "exhibit his [her] wisdom and power both by exploring the creation and developing its resources, and by bringing our own created abilities to fulfillment"(6). To follow God's mandate, the Christian teacher needs to unite faith and learning. But how can this unity be realized in the act of responding to poetry? This unity proposes that responding to poetry is an act of faith. This means repudiating the idea of ideological neutrality and detached objectivity, and allowing faith and personal values to inevitably influence response. This response process can only be effective when it is guided by the SDA literary worldview. The resultant response of the student will reveal whatever is believed and valued. The teacher must integrate the guided-study philosophy that is perpetuated in the SDA college classroom with the college's guiding image to Christian thought: all students must acquire a holistic perspective of life, and what is right and good. There is no room for a neutral response. Student must be exposed to Christian learning, which, like Christian living, requires Christian liberty. Some may complain that there is a mixture of students in the classroom and that this requires the Christian teacher to accommodate responses that may reflect an integration of faith, which is not of Christ, and learning. But while the Christian teacher is busy protecting and accommodating the few who might be offended in the Christian classroom, by requiring responses that are other than the Christian faith approach, the majority of Christian students and searchers of Truth are left unchallenged. The Christian college and teacher cannot participate in the secularization of learning. After all, the college is a Christian community that must maintain its spirituality while at the same time remaining creatual. So then in responding to poetry through the integration of faith and learning, the student, through a Christian perspective, must recapture the meaning and worth of human existence, and secular knowledge and

8 68 thought with their God-given sanctity. This theory thinking and responding with a redeeming hope, and this is the kind of response, which the SDA pedagogical framework for poetry demands. Too often have I heard college students say: "We had too much analyzing of poems assigned for study," "we were given too many selections that were boring," the poems are too long," "poetry is hard to understand and it's difficult to read." Interestingly, these responses are invariably the same quarter after quarter. Leyland Ryken explains that poetry, like the rest of literature, "is the interpretive presentation of human experience in an artistic form," only that it is a more concentrated form of discourse (121). There is also the fact that poetry is primarily emotional in its appeal, is built around subjects and ideas, and appeals to the intellect. This fact mandates the SDA college teacher to maintain the principle of guided reading. The issue that now arises is one of choice. Many students show distaste for the selection of poems that are presented to them. How can literature teachers arrest this distaste for poetry in unhappy students, and at the same time remove the general prejudice against poetry? The issue must be faced frankly because poetry has always been and will always be a part of the college's curriculum. An avoidance will not suffice. A new approach is requisite. The teacher must propagate the poem as an item of creation. SUGGESTED APPROACHES TO A FAITH RESPONSE The Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary defines a poem as "a creation" and poetry as, "writing that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience in language, chosen and arranged to create a specific emotional response through meaning, sound and rhythm." Whenever poems and poetry are discussed, certain literary terms dominate: emotion, perception, experience, condensation, symbolism and imagery, sensuous appeal, rhyme, rhythm, meaning interpretation, subject matter. All these terms aptly present the complexity of a poem and leads us to the salient question: what is the source of a poem? Stephen Minot in establishing the source of a poem, looks at four mediating processes: "Sense perception," allowing the confines of the mind to make contacts with the outside world in a sensuous framework; "Personal Emotions," dealing with feelings close to the heart; "The sweep of Experience," using sense perception and specific emotions to create experience,

9 69 and "Delight in Words," using words to create a finished work that emphasizes overtones rhythm effect and sounds of words (14-21). It is also very important that the SDA Christian worldview of God, that sees Him as the source of beauty and the creator of man and his capacities and capabilities, be the framework of our acceptance of a poem as an item of creation. This acceptance will acknowledge that man, made in the image of God, has limited creative power that glorifies his creator, and, moreover, supports, in the college classroom, the "premise that God is the Creator and Sustainer of the earth and the entire universe and is the Source of all knowledge and wisdom" (Guide to the Teaching, 3). God, therefore, is at the center of every response a student makes to a poem, however novel this idea may be for the student. The problem in a situation of this nature can be put in a question: how must the teacher approach literary responses so that the students can benefit from using the proposed pedagogical approach? The response approach of major worldviews presents a launch pad for the Christian approach to responding to poetry because of commonalities among responses. All worldviews require response from a created reading self, a genuine sense of belief in the poem, and seeing response as an act of faith. These commonalities of literary responses are the same in the recommended pedagogical approach, but within SDA college classroom, it is necessary that responses by students image God (Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton, 86). As "confessing, believing, and trusting" creatures, students in the SDA college classroom react to all views by a faith commitment a commitment that says the responder believes in what he/she knows about imaging God and is willing to act on it. This act is an act of faith and is similar to the commitment that is also required of the Christian in every phase of life. The SDA college teacher of literature can use the act of faith to show that the Holy Spirit guides the believer to respond in revelations that can glorify God, the creator, and that God is pleased whenever His people respond in ways that bless His name. A teacher must encourage students to make responses, written and oral that glorify God and propagate His character of love for the beautiful. This, however, will not be the experience of all students. Students come from varying backgrounds; and therefore, some will be conditioned to respond to certain stimuli in certain ways

10 70 because their environment plays an important part in the response process. So then, the SDA college campus is required to provide the disciplined and conditioned environment for experiential responses that reflect the guidance of God and the Holy Spirit. This requirement is part of the philosophy of the teaching of literature in the SDA context: God created the earth the earth and the entire universe and sustains them, He is the Source of al knowledge and wisdom, and literary responses must conform the truth about God, and nurture "an intelligent dedication" and desire to server people (Guide to the Teaching, 3). Proper conditioning and discipline will avoid "sensationalism and maudlin sentimentality" (Guide to Teaching, 5-6). The classroom will be a place of challenge. Teacher and student will challenge and stimulate each other and search for knowledge that will clarify problems and supply the basis for valid judgments. The poem, in this challenging environment, must be seen as an artistic creation in which "few words make much sense," and yield their "basic meaning" and work their "magic on our mind and heart" (James Sire, 166). The student, with the help of the Christian college teacher, can develop an appreciation for poetry. However, this is not always the case. The student's inability to appreciate poetry is of great concern especially when poetry is described as a medium for providing insight into essential human experience. This inability may be the result of an inadequacy. It can be an inadequacy to respond to a specific image that is outside of the reader's experience or an indifference to poetry as a genre of literature. A situation of this nature will require the teacher to provoke a change to an attitude that is flexibly receptive to what the poem offers and to perceive its significance. This change of attitude will come about when students attend to the basic elements poetry: speaker and tone, diction, imagery, sound, rhythm, meter, structures, and theme. Attending to these basic elements can bring about the literary excursion experience an experience that involves reading the poem a few times to identify speaker, subject, tone, and situation; understanding the grammar for denotative and connotative meaning; listening to rhythm and sound for changes that affect meaning; attending to figures of speech that create symbols and images. The student will acquire, from this approach, a broader and deeper insight of the poem through this new literary experience. The result will be a full interplay between student and poem, and the

11 71 creation of an awareness of the dynamic nature of such an interplay: the gaining of a critical consciousness of the weaknesses or strengths of the emotional and intellectual devices with which the reader approaches poetry and life. The student in this situation will learn to handle freely, with intelligence and discrimination, the personal factors that are involved in reacting to a poem. A free response helps in the initiation of a process of growth. The Christian teacher in this response situation can help in the choice of poems that will initiate a guided response process. Choice or selection of poems must be done by teacher in the initial stage of the class, and later, by students, when the teacher is satisfied that students are capable of adhering to the SDA philosophical mandate: Firstly, selection must satisfy certain functions: to show the artistic wealth available in the forms of the written word; to provide significant, artistic, lasting insights into essential human experience; to develop an emulation and appreciation of the beauty of language and art literary structure; and secondly, selection must lead to significant insights into the nature of man in society and be compatible with SDA values (Guide to the Teaching, 5). The college classroom will be a setting, which bespeaks admiration and respect for both teacher and student, and the feeling of a sense of adequacy by the students because their ideas and experiences are worthy of consideration and answer the philosophical call to integrate faith in the learning process. This integration helps the teacher to treat the response framework as an SDA pedagogical approach, which demands that students treat the whole range of choices, aspirations and values as a machinery of weaving an SDA Christian philosophy of life. Rosenblatt claims that students are "meeting extremely compelling images of life that will undoubtedly influence the crystallization of their attitude" and calls on the teacher to "exert an influence through the whole framework of ideas and attitudes" (20). This is a clear mandate that the SDA college teacher must provide the role modeling and awareness that will sharpen critical thought and perceptions and, at the same time, adhere to the call for guided reading. This means that the role of the SDA college teacher must be looked at more closely. Traditionally, the role of the teacher is viewed within the context of dispersing information, of managing the learning process to the extent where he/she becomes the sole and indispensable

12 72 disseminator of information. Learning along this contour emanates from teacher to pupil. The recommended SDA pedagogical approach changes this idea. The role of the teacher becomes that of a facilitator where the environment for response is created by the teacher. This environment generates intellectual discourse and demands that the teacher be a model of intelligence and a guide to help students expose their value systems for reflection by both teacher and fellow students. How can this be done? Students can scrutinize the value system exhibited and propagated by both the teacher and the college in terms of its consequences and interpretation of human life. Response to the poem, using this value system, will not only yield literary values, but also the appropriate values that must be attached to life. Students will learn that certain kinds of feeling and experiences are sociable and valuable. Everyone expects the SDA college teacher to be a model in reflecting the dogma of his/her redemptive axiology, which is a commitment to faith. This commitment becomes contagious in the SDA college classroom. Regardless of the theory this teacher appropriates, the method of tutelage should not only be viewed as perceptual but also exemplary: helping students to create responses that exhibit "thorough analysis of methods and material and concepts and theoretical structures, a lively and rigorous inter-penetration of liberal learning with the content and commitment of Christian faith" (Holmes, 7). APPLYING THE RECOMMENDED APPROACH The following are examples of how the SDA pedagogical response of integrating faith and learning can be achieved in two poetic structure: "Sonnet 116" by William Shakespeare and "Human Abstract" by English Romantic writer, William Blake. SONNET 116 Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediment. Love is not love Which alters when in alteration finds,

13 73 Or bends with the remover to remove. Oh, no! It is an ever fixed mark That looks on tempests and is never shaken; It is the star to every wandering bark, Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken. Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks Within the bending sickle's compass come; Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, But bears it out even to the edge of doom. If this be error and upon me prove, I never writ nor man ever loved. 1. A college student, responding to this sonnet using the prescribed pedagogical framework, can find meaning by examining the following words and phrases that aptly describe genuine love: Words and Phrases "Does not alter" Paraphrases Version It is unchanging; "A fixed mark" It is a fixed mark; "not shaken" "Not time's fool" "The star to every wandering bark" "Bears it to the edge of doom" It is not easily shaken:; It is not fool's time It is the star to every wondering ship; It bears to the edge of doom 2. Love is defined within a personal emotional framework. Shakespeare claims to have never written if his definition is proven wrong. Can the definition be proven wrong? Another exercise that is possible here is to let students create their definition of Love. 3. Value systems of student can be exposed if this question is discussed in a class setting: would it matter if we do not love?

14 74 4. Students need to experience the insight of enlarging their world. Is Shakespeare making an unconscious admittance that the symbol "love" transcends worldviews and leads to the image creator, God? There is a dynamic interplay in the Bible: God is love. Let students react to the interplay in a personal manner. 5. What value can be placed on love? Students can adjust their worldviews, and see love from a changed value system which shows that God is really love. THE HUMAN ABSTRACT Pity would be no more If we did not make somebody Poor, And Mercy no more could be Of all were as happy as we. And mutual fear brings peace, Till the selfish loves increase; Then Cruelty knits a snare, And spreads his baits with care. He sits down with holy fears, And waters the ground with tears; Then Humility takes its root Underneath his foot. Soon spreads the dismal shade Of Mystery over his head; And the Caterpillar and Fly Feed on the Mystery.

15 75 And it bears the fruit of Deceit, Ruddy and sweet to eat; And the Raven his nest has made In its thickest shade. The Gods of the earth and sea Sought thro' Nature to find this Tree; But their search was all in vain: There grows one in the Human Brain Using the recommended pedagogical response to Blake's poem, meaning must be determined. What is the poem saying? Here, love is not the same as in Shakespeare's sonnet. This is love that is skewed. This love demonstrates impulses that are opposed to sincere love impulses or acts of accommodation and meanness. VERSE I Pity and mercy can be extended to people who need them. This is axiomatic, but it's a lie an inappropriate truth with an unhealthy emphasis. It shows how easy a lie is entered upon. This verse gives two axioms, which are untruths. VERSE II Third axiom carries the same hidden acceptance, but the irony with which it is stated is more apparent. "Mutual" refers not to a working together but a separate working to compatible private ends. This is regulated by an esteem based on mistrust accommodation. The "love" is selfish. "Peace" and "love" here describe impulses that are opposite to what we usually take them to mean.

16 76 The first two axioms are truths told with wrong emphases, but the third goes further. It suggests that one may now feel quite easy about advantage or exploitation, for it insists on the necessity of "mutual fear" in communal life. The poet's insights now take over and he makes a direct attack on the distorted thinking and hypocritical concealment consequent on the lies of the first six lines. Cruelty is seen as setting a snare and laying baits in order to entice for further self-deception, encouraging the worst propensities to be practiced with the best of intentions. VERSE III - V The remainder of the poem uses the image of the growth of a tree to describe the advanced stages of deception. The Bible says true virtue or love is unselfish "it vaunteth not itself." The growth of this tree commences in the heart of the deceiver and advances to full fruitation in deceitful pride. We distinguish between a proper sense of duty and revenge, and an unnatural and distorted dedication. The root of the tree is a form of self deception. A continuous patchwork of rationalization goes on to keep the tree alive. The fruit of the tree looks healthy. For example, "humility" and "mystery" are seen like the real thing but they are all motivated by self-love. The "selfish loves" increase quietly just as how fishermen knit their nets and spread their baits quietly, and the caterpillar and fly go quietly and intently about their activities. No human voice heard in the poem and the abstractions refer to mute, internal processes. VERSE IV The final stanza shifts from nature to the human brain, hence the title, "Human Abstract." Three lines are dedicated to the search and one line to the discovery. Who is qualified to search for natural

17 77 than the gods of earth and sea. They search hard but fail to find it as belonging to nature. Hence, it is a human abstract. Deception and hypocrisy are sins that walk unseen except to the God of creation alone, says John Milton. And the human mind is the only place where these grow. They do not belong to nature. "The heart if deceitful about all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?" (Jer. 17:9). Teacher can conclude the study of this poem by letting the class examine 1 Cor 13 without being too didactic. It speaks for itself. CONCLUSION The controversy on the issue of reader-response theories will continue. There are those who will support the pseudo scientific reaction of objectivity and impersonality, and those who will define the implications of the personal nature of the literary experience. Whatever approach the response takes, the SDA college teacher must help students to read so well that they may derive any and all possible benefits from the poem, using at times the theoretical framework of interpretation from the Scriptures. The quest for integration of faith in the learning process underscores the thought that something has gone wrong. In college courses on Christian education, students study the various schools established by God. In these schools, faith and learning were not integrated; faith was the basis of the learning process. In retrospect, the SDA philosophy demands the concept of educational wholeness that is characteristic of its message-dominated schools: the integration of faith and learning. From the recommended SDA pedagogical framework, and the response exercise in the last section of this essay, SDA college teachers should not be at a loss as to how to link beliefs, values and academics in legitimate ways in the college classroom. There must be coherent approach to all reality. This is one of God's proven ways to lead people into an understanding of the meaning and aesthetics of life.

18 78 Works Cited The Bible. [NIV] Guide to the Teaching of Literature in Seventh-day Adventist Schools Washington: Department of Education, n.d. Holmes, Arthur F. "The Idea of a Christian College." The Journal of Adventist Education 34.3 (1972): 5-7 & 14. Leitch, Vincent B. American Literary Criticism. New York: Columbia UP, Minot, Stephen. Three Genres. 2 nd ed. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., Mouly, George J. Psychology for Effective Teaching. 3 rd ed. New York: Holt, Rinchart and Winston Inc., Rasi, Humberto M. "Adventists Face Culture: Should We Love or Hate the World" Jan "Faith Development and Adventist Youth." Jan 1996: 1-9. Rosenblatt, Louise M. Literature for Exploration. 4 th ed. New York: the MLA of America, Ryken, Leland. The Literature of the Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, Sire, James. Discipleship of the Mind. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, Tompkins, Jane P. Ed. Reader-Response Criticism. New York: Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Up., Walsh, Brian J., and J Richard Middleton. The Transforming Vision. Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, Webster's New Twentieth Collegiate Dictionary. Ed. Hean L. McKechnia. New York: Simon and Schuster, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary. Springfied, Massachusetts: Merrisn-Webster Inc., White, Ellen G. Early Writing. Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publishing Assn., Education. Mountain View: Pacific Press Publishing Assn., 1942.